For nearly 500 days, 79 Israeli hostages have endured unimaginable suffering in Hamas’s underground dungeons – starved, beaten, and psychologically tortured. Their captors, the same terrorists who massacred 1,200 innocent people on October 7, including family and friends of the hostages they now hold, once again revealed their true, genocidal nature this weekend.
The appearances of Ohad Ben Ami and Eli Sharabi, taken from their homes in Kibbutz Be’eri, and Or Levy, kidnapped from the Supernova music festival, have shaken the world to its core.
While comparisons to the Holocaust are often avoided, the horrifying transformation of these hostages makes them impossible to ignore. After 491 days of relentless cruelty – physical beatings, starvation, psychological torture, and complete deprivation in Hamas terror tunnels – Holocaust survivors themselves have spoken out, drawing chilling parallels to concentration camps.
And yet, despite the overwhelming evidence of Hamas’s inhumane treatment of hostages, an increasing number of people in the West are whitewashing their atrocities, falling for Hamas propaganda, and even justifying the group’s crimes.
During hostage releases, some Western media outlets and activists rushed to amplify Hamas’s staged optics – claiming the hostages were smiling and waving or that they had received “gift bags” as if they had been well cared for.
The reality? Hamas is staging a grotesque propaganda show meant for the useful idiots of the West. The three released hostages released over the weekend revealed they had been purposely starved, even losing up to three clothing sizes, only to be given slightly more food in the days leading up to their release – an effort by Hamas to deceive the world into believing they had been treated humanely.
But still, many refuse to acknowledge what is plainly evident. In recent weeks, social media has been flooded with posts suggesting that Hamas was not as brutal as Israel claims and that the hostages appeared “fine.”
Now, as the truth becomes harder to deny, the media are continuing to whitewash the reality, using phrases like “Israel condemns frail appearance” or “Freed Israeli hostage looks gaunt, according to British family.”
This deliberate downplaying of the hostages’ suffering is not just misleading – it is a dangerous attempt to obscure the brutality of a terrorist regime.
Psychological torment ignored
The psychological torment was ignored – like Eli Sharabi, who was deliberately kept in the dark about his family’s fate and then forced to say he was excited to reunite with them. Hamas knew his wife and daughter had been murdered on October 7. They made him say it anyway.
Hamas has long understood that while it cannot defeat Israel militarily, it can win the war of public perception. It relies on a willing audience of activists, journalists, and academics who – whether out of ignorance, ideological zeal, or sheer anti-Israel bias – parrot its talking points without hesitation.
Some Western media outlets, including the BBC, have even drawn obscene comparisons between hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails – conveniently ignoring the fact that those prisoners were convicted of real crimes, including murder and terrorism.
Equating them to innocent civilians abducted from their homes is not just misleading – it’s obscene.
Take the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). It was quick to express outrage over wristbands given to Palestinian prisoners that bore in Hebrew, “The eternal state of Israel lives, we do not forget, and we will pursue our enemies with everything we have.”
The ICRC deemed this “dehumanizing.” Yet, it has said nothing about Hamas forcing hostages to participate in propaganda videos, coercing them into thanking their captors, parading them on stage after barely surviving lynch mobs, and directing them to smile for the cameras – all while Red Cross officials sign Hamas’s certificates and shake hands with terrorists, legitimizing their rule.
The willingness to believe Hamas’s propaganda is not just naïve – it actively endangers those still in captivity. At least 76 hostages remain in Gaza, enduring the same nightmare that Ohad, Eli, and Or survived. Every attempt to sanitize Hamas’s image makes it harder to apply the international pressure needed to secure their release.
By engaging in apologetics for Hamas, Western activists and media figures are complicit in prolonging the hostages’ suffering. They are giving the terrorist organization exactly what it wants – global legitimacy and the cover to continue its campaign of terror.
The stories of Ohad, Eli, and Or should serve as a wake-up call. The world cannot afford to be deceived by Hamas’s carefully curated propaganda. The hostages were not “prisoners.” They were victims of a terrorist regime that thrives on human suffering.
It’s time to hold accountable those who whitewash the suffering of innocent civilians in the name of their hatred for the Jewish state.
The writer is a co-founder and CEO of Social Lite Creative, a digital marketing firm that specializes in geopolitics.
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